


staying in the trenches (cause you're worth fighting for)

by foxfireflamequeen



Series: easy like sunday morning [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 19:56:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8503291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxfireflamequeen/pseuds/foxfireflamequeen
Summary: 05/08/2013
Justin5:45 AM: holster’s godfather was kia in afghanistan. he just found out. funeral’s today.Justin5:46 AM: i still have two finals to goJack5:46 AM: I’m done with finals. I can drive.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is the Check Please! big bang fic that's been done for _ages_ and I finally get to share it with you; I'm so excited! [jellyfishfrost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishfrost), better known as [littlestpersimmons](http://littlestpersimmon.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, has created an amazing, amazing piece of **art** for this fic. I adore it and am _so_ thankful to them for working through their illness to draw for my fic.
> 
> Also, [owllover625](http://owllover625.tumblr.com/) has worked very hard on a fantastic **[playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/1274993864/playlist/5VqAPWtkSImYZeeOezmOCG)** , and I am incredibly grateful to her. It's amazing, guys, please give it a listen.
> 
> And finally, thank you to [fatlardo](http://fatlardo.tumblr.com/) and [naiadique](http://naiadique.tumblr.com/) for beta-ing, and for being patient with me when I was being stubborn. It really does take a village.

 

 

 

**05/08/2013**

Justin  
5:21 AM: _you awake? need help asap_

Jack  
5:45 AM: _Just got back from my run. What is it?_

Justin  
5:45 AM: _holster’s godfather was kia in afghanistan. he just found out. funeral’s today._

Justin  
5:46 AM: _he’s looking up bus tix but they’re expensive the day of and i dont want him to go alone_

Justin  
5:46 AM: _i still have two finals to go_

Jack  
5:46 AM: _I’m done with finals. I can drive._

Jack  
5:47 AM: _Will he want me to go with him?_

Justin  
5:47 AM: _idk but u should. he’s no good alone_

Jack  
5:48 AM: _He might miss the funeral if he takes the bus. Looked it up, first greyhound from samwell to buffalo isn’t till 11._

Jack  
5:48 AM: _Be there in 30._

Justin  
5:48 AM: _i’ll have him packed and ready to go_

 

* * *

 

**05/08/2013**

Adam  
6:25 AM: _heading back to ny today. family emergency. sorry i couldn’t stay for a proper goodbye._

Jack  
6:26 AM: _I’m driving him, so don’t send out a search party, Lards._

Shitty  
6:26 AM: _that’s shitty, bro. tc_

Lardo  
10:25 AM: _shit bro, you ok?_

Adam  
10:26 AM: _yeah i’ll be fine_

 

* * *

 

Adam doesn’t do sadness the way most people do sadness. He doesn’t cry, like Kent used to, or get angry, the way Shitty does, or even go still and quiet like Lardo. The thing about Adam being sad, Jack thinks, is that it’s not very different from Adam like he normally is. A little quieter, maybe, and—brittle—like he might break any second. But for the most part he smiles and it doesn’t look fake and he talks like nothing’s wrong and he can fool almost anyone into thinking he’s just fine.

So when he _does_ go still and quiet and doesn’t lean over the center console for a kiss when he climbs into Jack’s idling car, Jack doesn’t think he’s sad. It’s something else, something unfamiliar, and seven months isn’t nearly long enough to know everything about a person, no matter how long they’ve been sleeping together.

“Call me when you get there,” Ransom calls through the window and rubs his knuckles into Adam’s hair. Adam doesn’t look at him. Ransom meets Jack’s eyes over his head and shrugs helplessly.

“We’ll call,” Jack assures him, and lets him squeeze the back of Adam’s neck one more time before he pulls away from Samwell, two duffels in the trunk of the car and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the glove compartment for Adam to nibble on if he wants.

 

* * *

 

“He didn’t have breakfast,” Ransom whispered when Jack showed up at 6:20 sharp, eyes dark and worried. “He’s being weird, man, I got nothing.”

“It’s a lot to process,” Jack told him, even though he had virtually no idea.

“I wish I could go with you guys,” Ransom said, scrubbing his hands over his close-cropped hair. “How am I supposed to focus on finals now?”

“Good luck,” Jack said, only a little cynical, watching the door where Adam disappeared to take a piss the moment Jack walked in. He’s very good at avoiding people. “Listen, I know you have a lot to do, what with packing up both your shit for the summer, but if you have some time you should drop by at Holster’s place before you head back to Toronto. The team can move your stuff to the Haus.”

Ransom watched him for a long moment, brows drawn tight. “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” he said. “You know he’s glad you’re going with him, right? He’s being weird right now, but he wants you here.”

Jack almost smiled, because Ransom doesn’t know him very well at all. If he did, he’d know that it doesn’t _matter_ , as long as Adam’s okay.

“Yeah,” he said anyway. “He’s no good alone.”

 

* * *

 

Adam has a big family, he’s told Jack. They don’t always get along, but he loves his aunt who makes the best potato salad and the uncle who disapproves of Adam not doing his part for his country but loves him anyway and the other uncle who has the best war stories. He has nine cousins on his dad’s side and four on his mom’s, and that makes a lot of sense, because he acts like a big brother even though he’s an only child. His grandparents treat him like he’s still ten years old and the entire family does Thanksgiving together in Poughkeepsie and Fourth of July at Long Lake.

Jack’s biological family is smaller. His parents are both only children, and his grandmère has Alzheimer’s, so she doesn’t remember him, and he doesn’t go to visit. His Paw Paw passed away when he was five. Jack has no memory of him, but he remembers his dad picking him up and hiding his face in Jack’s little shoulder, and he remembers his t-shirt soaking through. It was the only time he saw his dad cry. His mom’s parents visit once a year for an awkward Christmas, and they spend most of that time judging his mother for Jack’s life choices. “If you were a better mother, if you’d made sure he was loved and taken care of, he would have never,” they say, and Maman purses her lips and doesn’t argue, even though Jack tries to tell her it wasn’t her fault. Jack knows they were close, his mother and her parents, before his overdose.

His actual family is made up of mismatched uncles and aunts, his dad’s old teammates and his mom’s favorite bartender and stylist and drag queen friends. They get together for the Stanley Cup finals and the Olympics and the Oscars and the Emmy’s instead of Christmas and Thanksgiving.

Adam sent his godfather a care package last month, made up of store-bought cookies and chocolates. He asked Jack for a bottle of his Canadian maple syrup because Ransom was out.

The only death in Jack’s family that really affected him was, well, him.

 

* * *

 

**05/08/2013**

Shitty  
6:26 AM: _you’re driving him?_

Jack  
6:26 AM: _Leaving in 15._

Shitty  
6:27 AM: _he ok?_

Shitty  
6:27 AM: _you ok?_

Jack  
6:27 AM: _I don’t think he’s very okay._

Jack  
6:27 AM: _Why wouldn’t I be okay?_

Shitty  
6:28 AM: _just asking. look after yourself too_

Shitty  
6:28 AM: _text/call if you need me_

Jack  
6:29 AM: _I will._

Shitty  
6:29 AM: _i love you, ok?_

Jack  
6:29 AM: _Thanks, Shitty._

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” Jack says awkwardly, merging onto the I-90 and checking all his mirrors to catch a glimpse of Adam’s face. “Do you, uh, do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Adam says succinctly, chin tucked against his chest. He sounds—tired.

“Okay,” Jack says. “I don’t think I want to drive back again today. Is there a hotel near your place I could stay the night? I’ve never been to Buffalo.”

“There’s a Mariott downtown,” Adam replies, plucking at a loose thread on the hem of his shirt. It’s the longest sentence Jack’s gotten out of him since last night. “But you can stay at my place.”

Jack looks at him out of the corner of his eyes and thinks, _unlikely_. “I don’t want to impose,” he says. “Hotel is fine.”

Hotel _is_ fine. Jack has spent at least one third of his life in impersonal hotel rooms in strange cities, but he’s still a little disappointed when Adam doesn’t insist.

He turns on the radio and tunes into the top 40 station instead of his pre-set country one. Adam doesn’t sing along, but his shoulders start coming down from his ears around obnoxiously peppy song number three, so Jack must have done something right.

 

* * *

 

**05/08/2013**

Justin  
9:21 AM: _you guys good?_

Jack  
10:13 AM: _Yeah. Stopped for gas._

 

* * *

 

“Done tattling to Ransom?”

Jack starts and pockets his phone before he remembers he doesn’t have anything to feel guilty about. Adam raises his eyebrows at him and shuts the door of the car.

“He was just asking for a travel update,” Jack shoots back, a little annoyed. “He probably asked you, too.”

Adam shrugs. “He asked me a lot of things.”

“He’s just worried,” Jack says defensively. Adam doesn’t reply, so they stand there and watch the meter go up, quiet and awkward and everything they haven’t been in months. Jack disengages the pump and swipes his credit card, and when he looks up Adam’s eyeing the little gas station store.

“Think they have a bathroom?” he asks, something odd in his voice that Jack can’t really place.

“Probably?” he says. “Do you want something to eat?”

Adam indicates the parking spaces in the corner. “You should park. My ass is numb; we can stretch our legs for a bit.”

“I—sure,” Jack says, feeling off-kilter. “Hang on.”

Adam wanders into the store as Jack pulls away from the dispenser and parks the car properly, so Jack uses the privacy to lean his head against the steering wheel and take a moment to freak out. He doesn’t know what Adam wants, he doesn’t know what he needs, and Jack needs to stop working himself into a panic attack because it’s _not about him_ so he goes through his breathing exercises, pulls it together in under a minute, and grabs the ball cap he keeps in the glove compartment.

The store isn’t as small as it looks; there are a few aisles and even a freezer section. Adam already has a selection of chips and two bottles of diet Coke lined up at the register, and by the time Jack walks up to him he’s done paying. He glances at the cap pulled low over Jack’s face and snorts.

“You really look like you’re about to go rob a Burger King now,” he says. Jack smiles at him.

“I think I saw a sign for one a few miles back,” he chirps. Adam shakes his head, but his lips twitch fondly and that’s good enough for Jack. He starts to pick up the plastic bags, but Adam grabs his arm.

“Hang onto these for a sec,” he tells the kid at the register, then drags Jack to the back of the store and through the rickety door labeled ‘BATHROOM’ in blocky handwriting on a piece of white paper.

It’s a single room, with a toilet and a sink and an overflowing trashcan. “What—” Jack starts, looking around, but Adam cuts him off brutally, slamming him into the wall with the force of his bulk and dropping to his knees on the disgusting floor.

It takes Jack’s brain far too long to get with the program, and by then Adam already has him unzipped and in hand. “Holster, wait,” he manages, but Adam isn’t listening. He licks up the side of Jack’s dick and mouths at the head and Jack isn’t even remotely hard but his head thumps against the wall anyway because that still feels _good_.

“ _Holster_ ,” he says again when Adam swallows around him, fingers scrabbling against the tiles. “Wait, hey, please, I don’t—”

Adam pops Jack’s dick out of his mouth and blinks up at him, mouth red and glistening. “You don’t want to?”

“I just,” Jack tries again, eyes wide and mind racing. He’s _had_ sex like this before, quick and dirty and just a way to shut everything _off_ for a few minutes. He doesn’t know how to explain that he’s been done with this part of his life for a long time, using people and letting them use him.

“Adam,” he says, and is mortified when his voice breaks.

Adam’s off the floor in a heartbeat, hands splayed in front of him like he’s approaching a spooked animal. “Sorry,” he says, small and miserable. Jack’s chest clenches. “I’m sorry. I should have asked.”

Then he turns around, pulls open the bathroom door, and strides out.

 

* * *

 

His first therapist told him Kent Parson wasn’t good for him. His second therapist said Jack probably wasn’t good for Kent either. His third therapist became his permanent therapist because she told him maybe it wasn’t their relationship that was bad, but the circumstances of it that sucked.

Kent loved everything Jack gave him, even when Jack was taking and taking far more than he was giving back. He’d kiss Jack messily when they were done and ask, “Feel better?” and Jack would say, “Yes,” even though he didn’t. Kent knew he was lying, but he never called him out. He probably didn’t know how.

 

* * *

 

Jack tucks himself back into his pants. Then he washes his hands, because god knows what was on that wall he was touching. When he comes out of the bathroom the kid at the register doesn’t even bother looking up. The bags they left there are gone.

Adam’s in the car, staring resolutely out the window. His shoulders are tense, and Jack knows even before he gets a look at his face that he doesn’t want to talk. Well, tough luck.

Jack doesn’t understand loss, but he understands this.

“I uh, used to do that with Parse a lot,” he says, and watches Adam flinch. His voice wobbles on Parse’s name the way it always does and probably always will, but he pushes through. “It’s not exactly a long term solution, you know.”

Adam’s quiet for so long Jack is worried he’ll have to carry this conversation on his own. “I wasn’t looking for a long term solution,” he says finally, a note of embarrassment in his voice.

Jack reaches out to take his hand. “Please talk to me,” he says.

Adam closes his eyes and thunks his head against the window. “I can’t,” he says helplessly. “I don’t know what to say.”

Jack watches him for a long moment. “Okay,” he says. “You can think about it, if you want. We still have at least four hours till we get there.”

He doesn’t realize until Adam leans across the gearshift to press his lips to the corner of Jack’s mouth that there was no kissing, before Adam went to his knees in the bathroom. There’s always kissing, because they both love it, and Jack—needs it, maybe. Adam kisses his mouth, then his cheek, and it feels like an apology.

“Don’t go to a hotel,” he blurts when they break apart, and immediately blushes so hard his cheeks go tomato red. “It’s not—it’s not a five-star hotel, but our condo is better than a Mariott, and I. I’d like it if you stayed with us. Me.”

He looks so _hopeful_ , like Jack could possibly say no. Like he’s not the most beautiful thing in the world when he smiles.

 

* * *

 

Shitty made Jack practice saying no, freshman year after Jack admitted to hooking up with a girl he actively hadn’t wanted to sleep with, and Shitty worked himself up into a horrified rant while Jack sat there and wondered what was wrong.

“We’re going to sit here and you’re going to say no to everything I do that’s not okay with you,” Shitty told him firmly, for once fully dressed on Jack’s bed, glaring him down like he had something to prove. “Any kind of touching, any form of nudity. We’re going to figure this out, and if I have to tie you up to keep you here I will.”

“What?” Jack had said. “No!”

“Excellent,” Shitty said, pleased. “That’s a good start. No bondage, check.”

It took two whole weeks before Jack could admit he didn’t like Shitty being naked on Jack’s furniture, and another two weeks before Shitty would believe that Jack’s half-hearted protests about him being naked in Jack’s bed weren’t really no’s. Then there were another two weeks of Jack saying no to literally every question he was asked, just so he could prove to himself that he could. He said no to Hazeapalooza, and to TPing the volleyball house. He said no to parties, and put the final nail in the coffin of his relationship with the seniors on the team by saying no when they trotted him out in front of the girls they wanted to wheel and asked him to tell them what it was like to be a celebrity.

There was a lot of successful practice, but the only person he can still really say no to is Shitty. Sometimes he pretends it’s Shitty he’s saying it to, to make it easier.

“Brah,” Shitty said disapprovingly when Jack told him this, mouth twisted into a frown.

“It works,” Jack replied, and then put his foot down about more practice exercises.

The thing is, Jack never has to tell Adam no. Adam always, always figures it out before Jack ever has to say it out loud, and one day Jack will tell him why that’s so important.

 

* * *

 

“Thank you,” Adam says later, face turned towards Jack instead of the highway. “For coming with me.”

Jack ducks his head, suddenly shy. “Anytime.”

 

* * *

 

It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but Jack has never been inside a condo before. The Birkholtz residence is surprisingly big; the first thing Jack sees when Adam pushes open the door is a large balcony across a roomy living space. Adam ushers him inside and drops his duffel on the floor right at the entrance, but Jack keeps his on his shoulder. He follows Adam’s example and toes off his shoes, then looks around eagerly.

“Do I get a tour?” he asks, vaguely aware that he’s bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Um,” Adam says uncertainly, eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights. “If you want?”

“Please,” Jack says politely, and Adam shows him the small kitchen and big bathroom before leading him to the second room down the hall.

“Oh,” says Jack, standing in the doorway of what is undoubtedly Adam’s bedroom.

It feels a bit like an invasion of privacy, because there’s a poster of Uncle Wayne on the wall and another one of his dad, and there are a few trophies lined on the bookshelf in front of paperbacks squished haphazardly on top of each other. The bedsheets are blue and the curtains are heavy and green, and Adam looks embarrassed, flushing redder and redder the longer Jack stands there and says nothing.

“Can I come in?” he asks when he’s seen everything he can from the threshold, and Adam tries very hard to pretend to be annoyed.

“Of course you can come in,” he says. “You can put your bag down wherever.”

He’ll be _staying_ here, Jack realizes, dropping his duffel in a corner and straightening to check out the bookshelf. The paperbacks range from children’s books to detective stories to issues of The Economist. There’s a whole section for classic literature, Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte and Margaret Mitchell, with a few Batman comics stuffed in between like placeholders.

“I didn’t know you played the piano,” Jack says, because the trophies aren’t all athletics related. One is from a middle school talent show and another from a youth piano competition, and they’re lined right next to the hockey trophies like Adam views them with equal importance.

“Yeah, well,” Adam shrugs, and Jack turns around to find him sitting on the bed, twisting the covers under his fingers. “I don’t really, anymore.”

There’s a stuffed koala sitting on the desk the size of Jack’s hand and he really wants to go over and pick it up, but Adam is—nervous, and still red, and it’s not funny anymore. Jack sits gingerly next to him on the soft mattress.

“Your mom’s not here,” he says, quiet.

“She’s with the family,” Adam shrugs again, back a hard line of tension. “Helping with the funeral and stuff.”

Jack winces, because he’d forgotten, for a moment, why they came. “Do you want me to drive you over there?”

Adam looks at the space between them speculatively, then shifts closer until he’s pressed against Jack’s side. “No,” he says. “Funeral’s not in another four hours, and I don’t. I’d rather not. Do you want to shower? We have time to nap.”

Jack lets him change the topic, and doesn’t mention how his fingers haven’t stopped moving since they got into the car nearly six hours ago.

 

* * *

 

**05/08/2013**

Jack  
12:04 PM: _I’ve met Mr Koala._

Justin  
12:04 PM: _oh thank god. he’s not answering me_

Jack  
12:05 PM: _We just got here. He’s in the shower._

Jack  
12:05 PM: _I think he’s better._

Justin  
12:05 PM: _better how? better like faking it better or actually better?_

Jack  
12:06 PM: _Talking to me better._

Justin  
12:06 PM: _that’s not better that’s just better than worse_

Jack  
12:07 PM: _Which is still better than he was six hours ago._

Jack  
12:07 PM: _Go study Rans. He’ll be okay_.

Justin  
12:08 PM: _i kno but i worry_

Justin  
12:08 PM: _u and me, we’re worriers_

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” Jack puts down his phone when Adam steps into the room, skin flushed from heat and glasses fogged up. “You ready for a nice long nap?”

Adam blinks, and there’s that deer in the headlights look again. Jack stands up from where he was lounging back against the pillows.

“I can go sleep on the couch,” he offers, contrite. Adam’s mom doesn’t know about them. “Sorry, I didn’t think.”

“I don’t want you to sleep on the _couch_.” He sounds so indignant Jack freezes where he is, looking from Adam to the bed and back again. “Fuck’s sake, Jack, I’m not kicking you out of my room.”

“Okay,” Jack agrees when it looks like he’s run out of steam, scrubbing his hands through his already messy hair. “Do you want to come over here?”

“You don’t have to treat me like I’m—going to snap, or whatever,” Adam glares balefully, but he crosses the space between them until he’s close enough for Jack to nudge him onto the bed. He slides the glasses off Adam’s face and puts them on the nightstand.

“I thought about it,” Adam says when they’re both under the covers, tilted together on the same pillow. His eyes are shut because he can’t really see without his glasses or contacts, and Jack wonders if it feels safer for him to talk like this, when he can pretend he has the cover of the night.

“I’m not sad,” Adam continues. “Or mad. Mostly I just feel bad that I’m not sad.”

He sounds—upset. Like he’s only doing this because Jack asked, and not very willingly.

“I asked you to think about it,” Jack says, quiet. “You don’t have to tell me.”

Adam blinks at him, hands sliding under Jack’s shirt to play with the hair on his chest. “I don’t want to talk,” he says. “Please.”

Jack wants to say a lot of things, starting with how he’s only ever said no to Adam once and it was one of the bigger mistakes of his life. What he ends up saying is, “Okay,” and, “Can I kiss you?”

“Yeah,” Adam breathes, eyes smaller without the glasses. Bluer, too. He lets Jack ease him onto his back and bracket him with his body, and finds Jack’s lips with his nose, then his mouth.

 

* * *

 

Jack is good at touch. It’s something he discovered with Parse but really learned with Shitty, and it makes no sense whatsoever but there it is. Parse used to say it was because he grew up surrounded by hockey players, all of them tactile by nature. He used to curl into Jack’s side and refuse to move until Jack figured out how to relax his muscles one by one, turning his body “from a brick wall into a big, overstuffed teddy bear. C’mon Zimms, sometime this year, preferably _before_ I’m done riding out this afterglow.”

Shitty thinks it’s hilarious. “I wish I were your boyfriend, brah,” he says at least once a week. “I need Zimmermann cuddle privileges.”

“You have Zimmermann cuddle privileges,” Jack reminds him, but Shitty persists in pretending to be jealous of Adam anyway.

Adam loves being weighed down. “No no, stay there,” he says when Jack makes to roll off him. The longer Jack keeps him pinned the more boneless he becomes. It’s the best and most effective way Jack knows to calm him down. He doesn’t understand it, but he loves that Adam wants it from him, and more than that, that Adam is big enough to take it from him. Even with Jack’s full weight bearing down over the length of his body Adam doesn’t have trouble breathing, so Jack never has to worry about suffocating him in his sleep. The first time Jack hugged all five-feet-one-hundred-pounds of Lardo he was sure he would crush her.

 

* * *

 

“What do you mean?” Adam demands, sitting up in bed, hair sticking out every which way and glasses perched on his nose. “You brought a suit, didn’t you?”

It’s mostly a rhetorical question, because Jack always brings a suit with him, even when the possibility of having to wear it is close to zero. Adam takes his silence as an answer and waves his hand.

“Then why wouldn’t you come with me?”

“I just,” says Jack. “I didn’t think you’d want me to?”

Adam stares at him. “Jack,” he says slowly. “Please come to the funeral with me. This is ridiculous; I’m not going to make a promposal out of this.”

Jack isn’t totally sure what a promposal is, but he can infer from the name. It’s probably inappropriate to make a joke about that right now.

“You never went to prom either, did you?” Adam asks with a sigh when it becomes obvious Jack doesn’t know how to respond.

“Please don’t try to organize a prom for me,” Jack says, giving in and crouching by his duffel to pull out his neatly folded three-piece suit. Adam scoots over to let Jack smooth out the shirt over the bedspread.

“I don’t have to,” he says. “Student Council hosts a senior prom every year. Just gotta wait two years. You can go with Shitty or Lardo and I’ll go with Rans and then we’ll switch.”

Jack looks up. “Did you actually put thought into this?”

Adam grins at him, his first real smile since yesterday. “Yeah,” he says like it should be obvious, and Jack has no choice but to lean over and kiss him.

Adam smells like sleep-warm skin. He slides his hand behind Jack’s neck and holds him there, so one kiss turns into two which turns into three, and then he opens his mouth and Jack has to pull away.

“Holster,” he says, reproving, and Adam has the grace to blush. Jack runs his hands through his hair, trying to flatten it down into something more manageable. Adam’s eyes flutter shut in visible pleasure, and it takes everything Jack has to not press him down into the sheets again.

“Come on,” he says eventually. “We need to get dressed.”

“Yeah,” Adam says, and stands. “Hey, have you been to a funeral before?”

Jack pauses, half out of his shirt. “Yes,” he says. “My grandfather’s.”

“I went to my dad’s, obviously,” Adam says, pulling a garment bag out of his closet. There’s a nicely altered black suit inside, and Jack can already tell that it’s going to pull a bit more at Adam’s shoulders now than it used to. “I mostly just remember my mom crying.”

“My dad cried,” Jack offers, because it’s all he has. “I don’t remember anything else; just that.”

Adam hums quietly, tucking his shirt into his pants. They finish dressing in silence, but before they step out through the door back into the real world, Adam smooths his hands down the front of Jack’s suit.

“I know you probably weren’t ready to meet the whole family just yet,” he says. “I’m sorry I’m making you.”

Jack looks up at him. His brows are scrunched together in a way that Jack has learned means apprehension, and his lips press together when he’s worried. Jack can count on one hand the number of people he knows well enough to read, and Adam is one of them.

“You’re not making me,” he says. “I want to be here for you.”

Adam’s whole face goes soft and shy. Jack rocks up on his toes to press their mouths together, careful to not ruin the lines of his suit.

“Come on,” he says when Adam’s lips are satisfyingly red, matching the color in his cheeks. “We’ll be late.”

 

* * *

 

They are late. The funeral is a little outside the city, and by the time they’ve walked across the cemetery to the open grave there are already at least thirty people standing around the open casket. Adam slows down when he sees it, then stops altogether.

“I don’t want to see him,” he says, arm pressed tight against Jack’s. He’s looking at the uniforms, and the guns. “Not like that.”

Jack catches his fingers, because no one’s looking at them. “You want to go a little closer so we can hear?”

Adam shakes his head and squeezes Jack’s hand tighter. “I don’t want to be here at all.”

“Okay,” Jack says, and they stay like that until the casket is lowered to the ground.

 

* * *

 

Everybody acted like someone had died, when Jack was in the hospital. His mother cried and his dad drank, and they wrapped their arms around each other and stood in front of the window in Jack’s private hospital room and didn’t look at him. His grandparents fussed over him for a bit before moving on to console his mother, and all his aunts and uncles who came to visit said, “I’m so sorry,” to his parents like Jack was already dead. Kent didn’t come at all.

Logically, Jack knows it was because he was always tired, half-asleep more often than not, so no one could really talk to him. He hadn’t been aware enough to need comfort, but his parents had, so that’s where all the attention went, and there are only so many things you can say to a mother and father whose son nearly died.

It still felt like he was dead, watching his family grieve from outside his body. The heavy medication probably didn’t help. He didn’t really believe he’d survived until nearly a week later.

The thing is, during that whole week when he was sure he’d accidentally-on-purpose killed himself, Jack didn’t regret it. Not once.

 

* * *

 

Adam’s mom catches sight of them first, when people start heading back to wherever the wake will be. “Adam,” she calls, and hurries to them, kitten heels sinking into the grass, and Adam sweeps her up in a hug that lifts her into the air.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she says when her feet are back on the ground. “I’m so glad you could make it. Thank you for bringing him,” she adds to Jack, looking so grateful he shuffles in place, embarrassed.

“It was no problem, Mrs. Birkholtz,” he manages, only a little awkward. He clears his throat. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Rachel, Jack. You know it’s Rachel,” Rachel says, and reaches for a hug. Jack bends down to gather her up obligingly, and she fits herself neatly against his chest, arms too short to reach all the way around his chest. “Was the drive too bad? You must be so tired.”

“Not at all, Rachel,” he replies, letting her fuss over his suit. She looks a little frazzled herself, hair falling out of its bun and mascara clumped together, probably from tears. There’s a lingering sadness in her eyes that Jack only recognizes because he’s seen it in Adam’s before. “Is there anything I can help with?”

“Not right now,” she says, giving him a short smile. “The wake is at their house. It’s a ten minute drive. You should come with us. We’ll pick up your car later.”

“Jack can drive,” Adam interjects. “I’ll ride with him, to give him directions.”

Jack looks from him to his mom, unsure. “Alright,” Rachel says after a moment of surprised silence. “I’ll see you there.”

They watch her rejoin the group of people who are clearly family, most of them looking at Jack curiously, but Adam makes no move to acknowledge them. Jack follows him to his car.

“We’ve talked about this,” Adam says once the seatbelts are on, which tells Jack exactly nothing except that he’s upset.

“I’m sorry?” he tries. “I don’t know what I did.”

Adam’s mouth is pinched, and he scrubs a hand through his hair. “This,” he waves at Jack’s everything. “The ESL media presence thing. I thought you were going to stop doing that. You don’t need to pretend to be someone else for my _mom_.”

“But it’s not just your mom,” Jack says. “It’s your whole family. This isn’t a bad thing, just a bit of media training. It helps me interact with people I don’t know and I have a script to follow so it doesn’t get overwhelming. I can’t—I can’t just _talk_ to people the way you do.”

“I want your family to like me,” he says, plaintive, and Adam’s mouth relaxes fractionally.

“ _I_ like you,” he says. “And I want _you_ with me today, not. Bad Bob Zimmermann’s Wunderkind, or whoever this is.”

Jack is quiet for a long moment. “I don’t know if I can, not with this many people. I’m sorry.”

Adam reaches out to touch his hand. “Try?” he asks, and yeah, okay. Jack can do that for him.

 

* * *

 

**05/08/2013**

Jack  
5:02 PM: _They hate me_

Shitty  
5:12 PM: _what? who hates you? i’ll hurt em_

Jack  
5:12 PM: _Holster’s family. They hate me._

Shitty  
5:12 PM: _they hate you, or your foreign exchange student bs?_

Jack  
5:13 PM: _They know who I am._

Shitty  
5:13 PM: _oh shit bro_

Jack  
5:13 PM: _Can I call?_

Shitty  
5:13 PM: _yeah gimme 2 mins to get out of the library_

 

* * *

 

“I know it’s not a good time to be selfish about this,” Jack says when Shitty picks up the phone. “But I really wanted them to like me.”

It’s an unnaturally bright day for a funeral. Funeral days should be rainy, he thinks. Glum and desolate and everything they show in movies. Adam was accosted by relatives the moment they stepped through the door, and four awful conversations with seven different relatives later Jack had discreetly stepped out the front door and found a blue SUV to hide behind, far away from. People.

“It’s not selfish to want your boyfriend’s family to like you,” Shitty tells him. “Yeah, the timing of the meeting sucks balls, and they don’t actually know you’re his boyfriend, but it’s natural to want _people_ to like you. Did they say anything?”

Jack leans carefully against the car at his back and scuffs his feet against the pavement. “I—sort of?” he says. “Not to me, really. Just. I heard them anyway.”

Shitty curses under his breath. Jack can hear him pacing; Shitty is a loud walker. “What did they say?”

“They think—they don’t think Adam should have brought me,” Jack blurts, embarrassed at the hot pinpricks of pressure behind his eyes. He’s heard so much worse from so many more important people; he’s not sure why these—these _nobodies_ matter. Except they’re not nobodies, they’re Adam’s _family_ , and Adam loves them and their opinion is important to him even when they’re wrong. Jack had turned the full force of his carefully coached and practiced charm on them and all they’d seen was a spoiled rich cokehead.

“They were talking about how expensive my suit looked and wondering why Ransom didn’t come and when his little cousin asked me how old I am and why I’m so old and still a student her dad pulled her away to explain how I made bad decisions and wasted years of my academic life in rehab. It wasn’t pretty, but I don’t think he knew I could hear. They all keep _looking_ at me, Shits. They’re polite enough but I know what they’re _thinking_.”

He’s seen those looks before. He still sees those looks, and his dad says the only way to stop them is to come out publicly with his story, but Jack isn’t _ready_ for that.

Shitty breathes angrily into the phone for a long time. “Does Holster realize his family’s a giant sack of dicks?” he asks, and Jack is startled into a laugh.

“He hasn’t realized, I don’t think,” he says. “They’re happy to see him, even though they’re not very approving of his life choices either.”

“Hockey,” Adam’s grandmother sniffed when Jack told her what he’s going to do after college. “Adam wanted to do that for a while. Thank the Lord he decided to go to college after all, and get a stable, respectable job.” Then she gave Jack the stink eye, just in case he didn’t get the message.

“Brah,” Shitty sighs in his ear. “That sucks. You oughta make your excuses and head out if it’s too much.”

“No,” Jack says, and it’s as easy as it always is, with Shitty. “Adam wants me here.”

“ _Adam_ wants you there, huh?” Shitty chirps gently, the way he always does when Jack doesn’t call Adam ‘Holster’. “Remember what I said about taking care of you, too?”

“I can do this,” Jack says stubbornly. “I just needed to—talk, for a second. Get it out of my head.”

“Alright,” Shitty says. “I’m here if you need to vent some more, but seriously. Holster would understand if you explained.”

“I’m not gonna tell him _now_. He’ll turn it into a thing about me and he’s got enough on his plate,” Jack protests, peeking around the SUV to make sure no one’s left the house yet. “Maybe next time. If there is a next time. His mom likes me, which is the part that matters.”

He can’t see it, but he’s pretty sure Shitty’s rolling his eyes. “All of it matters, Jack. But I guess his mom matters more. Has she met you yet, or are you still foreign exchange student Jack?”

“I’m trying, okay?” Jack says. Rachel’s busy too; now that Jack’s seen her in action he realizes that Adam gets his caretaking tendencies from her, not his oversized family. “I should probably head back before Holster notices I’m gone.”

“You got this,” Shitty says encouragingly. “Go be a supportive boyfriend, and remember I’m only a text away.”

“Only a text away,” Jack repeats, and wonders why that’s so comforting. “Thanks, Shits.”

“Anytime, brah,” Shitty says, sincere as always. Jack closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and ends the call.

 

* * *

 

**05/08/2013**

Jack  
5:27 PM: _Did you know Holster’s family wants you to date him?_

Justin  
5:27 PM: _holster’s family doesn’t know he’s bi_

Jack  
5:28 PM: _Yeah but they really, REALLY like you._

Justin  
5:30 PM: _does that bother you?_

Jack  
5:30 PM: _It’s probably a good thing? Right?_

Justin  
5:30 PM: _how would i kno???_

 

* * *

 

Jack finds Adam entertaining his youngest cousins far away from the food table, which is where most of the adults are. He stops a few feet away and hovers uncertainly for a few seconds, but then he catches great-aunt Margery heading his way, and decides he’ll take his chances with the kids.

“Hey,” he says, pressing his hand to the back of Adam’s neck, just for a second. Adam looks up at him.

“Hi,” he replies. “Sorry I left you out there. You disappeared when I went looking.”

“Stepped out for a bit,” Jack eases down onto the carpet next to him. The kids are eyeing him as suspiciously as the adults, but little cousin Mary isn’t here to warn them all off him after her dad’s talking-to, so that’s all they are: suspicious of a stranger.

“Hi,” he greets them awkwardly. If no one’s going to like him anyway it’s way too much energy to keep up the act. “I’m, uh, Adam’s friend from college. Nice to meet you.”

“They know who you are,” Adam says, and Jack feels his face fall before he can stop it. Adam bumps his knee. “No, I mean, they’ve been asking me about you, so they know you’re my team captain and one of my best friends, and that you don’t watch TV so they can’t ask you about anything good.”

“Adam says you’re a better hockey player than him _and_ Ransom,” one of the little girls pipes up, staring at him accusingly. “Is that true?”

Jack glances at Adam; he looks amused. “Only because I practice more than he does,” Jack tells them. “And not better than him and Ransom together.”

There’s a flash of surprise on Adam’s face before it’s replaced by a small, pleased smile. Jack makes a note to dole out compliments a bit more frequently; god knows some of his teammates deserve them.

“Have you met everyone yet?” Adam asks, and Jack doesn’t know if it’s being around the kids or if he’s just getting used to the news, but he’s a lot less miserable than he was before they fell asleep. Jack wants to kiss him, and hates that he can’t.

“Pretty much,” he says. “The potato salad is very good.”

Adam quirks a half-smile at him. “Told you. I think we’ll be heading out soon. Mom should get some rest before her shift tonight.”

“She has work?” Jack asks, then remembers it’s a Wednesday. She probably took the graveyard shift because of the funeral; it would make sense.

“Yeah,” Adam says, ignoring the kids wandering off in groups of two and three. Jack hopes there’s another designated babysitter in the area. “She couldn’t take the day off, so.”

Jack watches him closely, and this. This is familiar. The brittle smile and the quietness and pretending everything’s fine. This is Adam when he’s _sad_ , and Jack feels like an awful person for being relieved but sadness is just. _Easier_. Than whatever he was before.

“I wish I could hold you,” his blurts without thinking, which, holy shit. He glances around quickly; thank god no one else is in the kiddy corner, but his heart still pounds like a freight train.

Adam looks startled for all of one second before it melts into something soft and sweet. “I wish you could, too,” he says quietly. “But I’m glad you’re here at all.”

Jack ducks his head, pleased. It’s stupid, he knows, but he was worried Adam wouldn’t like him after today, if he fucked up meeting his family. He did fuck up meeting his family, but at least he’s pretty sure it wasn’t his fault.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly, and Adam shrugs.

“I’m holding up,” he says. “Ready to go home, honestly. Listen, I was thinking we could tell mom about, you know. Us. Tonight.”

Jack pulls his knees to his chest; his suit is going to be rumpled from sitting on the ground anyway. “We decided on summer break, and it’s summer break. For us at least.”

Adam cuts his eyes towards him, like he wants to say something but isn’t sure how. “You gonna tell yours?”

“In person,” Jack says, even though he gets the feeling that they know already. He talks about Adam often enough that Maman has started separating Holster from Ransom in her questions about his friends, and Uncle Mario keeps making noises about a _college visit_. His dad hasn’t said anything, but Jack’s not sure if it’s because he hasn’t caught on, he disapproves, or just that he doesn’t know how to talk to Jack about it without freaking him out. “I might tell the rest of my family too, if that’s cool with you. They all have media training; they’ll keep it quiet.”

“That your not-so-subtle way of telling me my family would be the ones to spill?” Adam raises an eyebrow, but before Jack can scramble to tell him _of course not_ , he sighs. “I know that’s not what you meant, but you’d be right. They’re not making a great impression right now, are they?”

“You uh, you heard that, huh?” Jack is embarrassed. He’s just plain embarrassed because he couldn’t do this one simple thing and make nice with his boyfriend’s family, and Adam will have to deal with the fallout of that.

Adam’s embarrassed too; his cheeks are red and he won’t meet Jack’s eyes. “I’m really sorry about that. They’re just. They’re really set in their ways. Education or military service, nothing in between. They just like Ransom cause he’s gonna be a doctor.”

“The NHL isn’t exactly a stable career path.” Jack smooths his sweaty palms over his knees. “Or a college hockey coach.”

“Yeah, I’m the black sheep in the family,” Adam says sheepishly. “Ransom makes fun of that cause we’re all so white.”

“And blond,” Jack adds. “Don’t forget blond.”

“And blond,” Adam agrees. “But you like blonds.”

“I like you,” Jack tells him, and watches his eyes light up like the sun.

 

* * *

 

Jack didn’t come out to his parents as much as his mother walked in on him and Parse in the bathroom, Jack’s hip pressed into the sink and Parse’s shirt rucked up to his armpits, both their pants open. Parse fled immediately and couldn’t look the Zimmermanns in the eye for two weeks straight, and Jack trudged downstairs to talk to his parents, anxious and terrified and so, so hopeful.

“We love you no matter what,” Maman said, folding him into a hug.

“Of course we love you, Jack,” his dad agreed. “But let’s not pretend this won’t have a profound impact on your career.”

Hindsight, time, and therapy has helped Jack realize that his father was just concerned about him, afraid for his son and his happiness the way parents are. Jack was always so _different_ ; Bob never did figure out how to talk to him.

His dad had wrinkled his forehead and looked concerned and said, “There aren’t any out players in the NHL,” and Jack’s back had gone up.

“I could be the first,” he’d said, seventeen and in love and on top of the world.

“Parse and me, who’s gonna tell us we can’t play?” he said, at the height of his career with teams circling him like vultures and so, so sure Parse would stand by him through it all.

“Oh, Jack,” Maman said, sadness in her eyes that looked a hell of a lot like pity. She never said anything more, but he knew she thought he couldn’t handle that.

“You, uh, you like girls too, right?” his dad asked gruffly, and Jack knows now that he was just looking to understand, but back then it had just sounded like he was asking Jack to give up Parse and settle for something less.

“I love Parse,” Jack told him, and turned on his heel, and walked out of the house.

Parse found him sitting on the frozen lake, shivering from cold and anxiety and so upset he couldn’t string a full sentence together. He petted Jack’s hair and held his hand.

“We’ll do it, you and me,” he said, because he was seventeen, too. He thought they’d be together forever, too. “We’ll come out, and if they don’t like us we’ll make them eat our dirt. We’ll be brave together.”

Turned out his mother was right. Jack wasn’t brave enough, and neither was Parse.

 

* * *

 

The drive back from the wake is quiet, mostly because Adam rides with Rachel and Jack programs his GPS and follows them in his car. He composes texts to Shitty in his head and considers calling Lardo, but ends up doing neither.

“Make yourself at home, Jack,” Rachel says when they walk back into the condo, splaying her arms and shooting him a tired grin. Adam doesn’t look much like his mom, but in that moment Jack can see where he gets his smile. “I’m going to start on dinner.”

“By dinner she means ordering delivery,” Adam tells Jack, and pulls a stack of pamphlets off the coffee table by the door. “We have Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, but mom’s the only one who likes the Japanese really, Thai, Korean barbeque, Indian, Moroccan, and plain old American burgers.”

“What, no Canadian?” Jack chirps, toeing off his shoes. Adam rolls his eyes expansively, but Rachel laughs.

“Oh, we already have some authentic Canadian beef in the house,” she replies, so deliberately casual it takes both Adam and Jack a second to figure out what she’s saying. Adam goes bright red.

“Mother!” he sputters, scandalized, which only makes Rachel laugh harder.

Jack looks between them, at Adam tossing a paper towel roll in Rachel’s general direction and Rachel pulling her carefully pinned hair loose right in the middle of the living room, and feels eight years old again, visiting another kid’s house for the first time and realizing that the innumerable rules that apply to him don’t apply to everybody else.

“Well? You’re the guest,” Rachel says, and Jack abruptly realizes she’s talking to him.

“I—sorry,” he says. “What?”

Adam looks at him fondly from where he’s migrated to the couch and turned on the TV. His feet are on the coffee table.

“What do you want for dinner?” he repeats, like it’s normal for Jack to space out in the middle of a conversation. “You’re the guest; you get to choose. Except Japanese. No Japanese.”

Rachel swats at his head. “He can have Japanese if he wants.”

“Chinese!” Jack blurts, and blushes when they both turn to look at him. “I haven’t had Chinese in forever—I don’t get to indulge much.”

“By ‘much’ he means ‘never’,” Adam translates for his mom, waving Jack over and handing him a menu. “Take your time.”

Jack sits, and takes his time. Rachel goes off to shower, and when Jack curls his sock-covered feet self-consciously up onto the couch Adam reaches out to squeeze his ankle. There’s some sort of cop drama show playing on TV that he’s only half-watching, one arm slung over the back of the couch. It’s a conscious decision to not curl into his side.

“Here,” Jack finally tosses the menu back to him, a little overwhelmed by the choices. “You order for me.”

Adam glances at him quizzically, but pulls out his phone anyway. He places an order for pork fried rice and crab rangoon and spring rolls and chicken lo mein, and a liter of diet Coke. Jack leans into his corner of the sagging couch and pays attention to the rest of the show, weirdly invested by the time Adam’s phone rings and Rachel pads back out in a nightgown and fluffy pink robe, feet in bunny slippers and wet hair rolled up in a towel. Jack’s mother would never let herself be seen in front of a guest like that. Jack wonders if Rachel is as comfortable around everyone, or if she just doesn’t consider him much of a guest. He hopes it’s the latter.

The chicken lo mein is mild and greasy and deliciously unhealthy. Jack eats at least half of the double order and feels bad about it. Adam wolfs down most of the quart of fried rice and all but one crab rangoon, which he offers to Jack. For some reason, that’s what makes Rachel stop and look between them speculatively, plate of lo mein balanced on her knee where she’s sitting in the armchair across from the couch.

“How were your finals, Jack?” she asks. It’s a generic question and one Jack already has an answer for— _they were fine, I’m hoping to do well this semester_ —but he looks at Adam shoveling three spoonsful of rice into his mouth and changes it.

“My um, my history ones were good,” he says, wincing his way through it. “I didn’t do so well on my science requirement. It was, uh, physics.”

Adam stops chewing and stares at him, but Rachel doesn’t seem put off by the awkwardness. “Well, that’s more than I get out of Adam whenever I ask about his exams. _Ugh_ , mom, you’ll know when the grades come out,” she mimics, smiling all the while, and Adam snaps his mouth shut and turns to her indignantly.

“You will!” he says. “Why do you keep asking? You know I don’t like talking about it.”

“We just want to know how your exams went, not how you did on them. Come on, it’s a normal question. Even Pat wants to know when he,” she suddenly bites her tongue, and Jack looks down at his plate and pretends very hard that he’s not there, because Adam’s gone very still. Pat was his godfather.

Rachel clears her throat. “I mean,” she starts, then stops again. There aren’t many ways to go about accidentally addressing a dead person in the present tense, Jack supposes.

“Yeah, well,” Adam says. “I’m sure he cared about my finals enough that he wouldn’t have cared if I came to his funeral or not, since you didn’t think to tell me before this morning.”

Rachel sits up straight. “Adam,” she says.

Jack puts down his empty plate and debates making a hasty retreat, but he’ll probably be noticed, and the only place he has to go is Adam’s room.

Adam doesn’t look at his mom. “We’re tired,” he says, drumming his fingers on his carton of rice. “It was a long trip. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Rachel leans over and grabs his arm. Her small fingers don’t make it all the way around. “Adam,” she says again, firm. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but there’s nothing you could have done. You were in the middle of your finals. Pat would’ve wanted—”

“You _don’t know_ what Uncle Pat would’ve wanted,” Adam says. “Because he’s _dead_.”

There’s nothing to say to that. Jack stays quiet when Rachel meets his eyes, like she expects him to know what to do. He doesn’t, is the problem. Maybe Ransom would; hell, maybe even _Shitty_ would, but Jack isn’t—he’s not good at this. All he can think to do is inch a little closer, press his thigh against Adam’s and feel the way tension makes his muscles quiver.

Rachel catalogues the movement with sharp eyes, but doesn’t say anything. “He loved you,” she tells Adam instead. “I know that much. He would have wanted what’s best for you, just like I do.”

Adam just. Crumples. 6’4” and 230 pounds and he collapses into a quivering ball in front of Jack’s eyes, and Rachel has him in her arms before Jack realizes what happened. He stands up to let her take his spot so she can hold Adam close as he cries, great, gasping sobs that make Jack’s heart rattle in his chest.

He remembers waking up in the hospital, scared and overwhelmed and pretty fucking sure he was dead. He remembers wanting his mother.

Rachel pets Adam’s hair, and wraps her arms around his shoulders as far as they can go, and tucks his head under her chin even though he doesn’t quite fit. Jack pads silently down the hall to Adam’s room. He closes the door, to make sure he can’t hear.

 

* * *

 

**05/08/2013**

Jack  
10:23 PM: _You busy?_

Justin  
10:24 PM: _just studying. what’s up?_

Jack  
10:24 PM: _Can you take a call?_

 

* * *

 

Ransom doesn’t reply, but Jack’s phone starts vibrating a moment later. “Nothing’s wrong,” he says instead of _hello_ , because he doesn’t know Ransom terribly well but he does know what he’d be thinking if Ransom sent him that text. “He’s with his mom.”

He doesn’t mention the anger, or the crying. Adam will either tell Ransom himself or he won’t.

“Oh,” Ransom says, deflated. “Is he okay?”

Jack thinks about it, because the easy answer is no, not when Adam is still in tears only a few feet away. But he’s with his mom.

“He will be,” he says honestly, picking up Mr. Koala. He fits into the palm of Jack’s hand. “He just needs some time now, I think.”

“Cool,” Ransom says agreeably. “Are you okay?”

Jack blinks, caught off guard. “Uh, yes? I’m fine.” He sits on the bed and puts Mr. Koala in his lap. The stuffing is leaking out of a broken seam. The koala is soft and worn, well-loved. He thinks of giant Adam sleeping with this tiny thing in his arms; it makes the pressure in his chest ease a little. “How are you?”

“Studying’s not really happening today,” Ransom admits. Jack hears a wrapper tearing in the background, and when Ransom speaks again his mouth is clearly full. “But I think I’m set for tomorrow’s final anyway so it’s all good.”

“That’s good,” Jack says when he realizes Ransom’s done talking, and feels like an idiot. Him and Ransom, they’re only friends by proxy of Adam and Shitty and Lardo. They’re both Canadian and they both play hockey, but they’ve only had one other actual conversation before, just them.

“You’re doing fine,” Ransom says awkwardly just as Jack adds, “Kinda wish you were here. I don’t know what to do.”

The silence stretches, then Ransom sighs noisily into the phone. “I wish I was there too, but I wouldn’t know what to do either, man. I mean, he’s like my soulmate or whatever, but I’ve only known him for a year, same as you.”

“Feels longer,” Jack says, petting Mr. Koala absently. “I’m sorry he’s not talking to you.”

“Shit, yeah, fix that, will you?” Ransom says. “What the fuck’s gotten into him?”

The same thing that lets Jack tell Adam bits and pieces about Parse and refuse to even touch the topic with Shitty, probably. Adam isn’t good at letting people take care of him, and that’s something Jack understands.

“Sometimes it’s harder,” he says carefully. “To talk to the people who love you the most, when you’re hurt. You don’t want to give them that. Burden.”

Ransom is quiet for a long time. “It’s not a burden,” he says finally, upset.

“I know,” Jack replies. “But it feels that way.”

There’s another long pause before Ransom blows out a breath. “It’s weird,” he says. “Sharing him. I think I get how Shitty feels now. Is it weird for you?”

That makes Jack laugh, because he had to share Parse with hockey and Shitty with Lardo, and he knows people don’t come wrapped in packages with a nametag attached.

“No,” he says. “I’m glad he has you.”

“Oh,” Ransom says, surprised. “That’s—thanks.” He clears his throat. “You’re good for him too.”

It’s not quite the same thing, Jack thinks, but it’s good enough.

 

* * *

 

Jack starts awake when he hears the door close and is disoriented for a minute, blinking at the beige walls and digging a stuffed toy out from under his neck.

“Sorry,” Adam says, contrite, hand reaching for the light switch. “Go back to sleep.”

“No, I’m up,” Jack yawns, and winces when his joints crack from falling asleep with half his body hanging off the bed. He’s not sure how long it’s been, but he’s sure that that little nap fucked up his sleep schedule for at least a week. He pulls himself to a sitting position and watches Adam dump his duffel on the floor.

He looks—small, eyes red and puffy and cheeks blotchy with color. His shoulders sag like he doesn’t have the strength to hold them up. Something in Jack’s stomach twists, watching him drag his feet around the room.

“Hey, Holtzy,” he says, and doesn’t know how to finish the thought.

Adam shuffles to his side, then steps between his knees. Jack loops his fingers into his belt and holds him there.

“How do you feel?” he asks, and Adam shrugs.

“Eh,” he says, which is Adam-speak for ‘like shit’. “Mom left for work.”

“Okay,” Jack starts. “Do you want to sleep, or…?”

“I want you to fuck me,” Adam says with no preamble. Jack cranes his neck back all the way to catch his eyes, and Adam holds his gaze, unflinching. He thought this through, Jack realizes. He’s not—frantic, like he was earlier, or freaking out. He knows what he wants, and he knows how to ask Jack for it.

“Yeah, okay,” Jack says, and leans up for a kiss, but Adam’s walking away from him to go root through his bag. He pulls out the lube and some condoms and tosses them on the bed, then strips efficiently right in the middle of the room.

“Well?” he asks impatiently when he sees Jack just staring, and this is—it’s not how they do this, but Jack peels off his shirt and slacks anyway because it’s not exactly normal circumstances. He’s been trying to figure out how to be useful all day; maybe this is it.

Adam waits for him to get down to his socks before striding over, and okay, the kissing is familiar, Jack can get with this program. Adam climbs into his lap and bites at his lips, demanding like he gets with adrenaline coursing through their veins after a good game. His cock is thick and blood-warm against Jack’s hip, and Jack feels himself growing hard in response.

He’s not even thinking of reaching for the lube when he hears the _click_ of the cap opening, and he pulls back, surprised. “Holster,” he starts, but Adam’s hand is already behind him, working himself open. Jack dips a finger between his cheeks and is surprised to find him two fingers in, faster than Jack has ever gotten there.

“Slow down,” he says, frowning a little. “We have time.”

“I don’t want to slow down,” Adam pants, mouth trailing down Jack’s neck. His other hand plants firmly in the center of Jack’s chest and pushes him against the headboard. That’s another thing they don’t really do; Jack loves as much contact as possible during sex, and right now there’s a foot of space between their chests.

“C’mon,” Adam says, fingers sticky with lube when he curls them around Jack’s neck to kiss him again. His kisses are the same, and Jack relaxes enough for Adam to roll off him and onto the bed on all fours. “C’mon,” he says again. “Fuck me.”

Jack is still only half-hard. He strokes himself roughly and fumbles the condom with his free hand, and Adam lowers himself to his forearms and whines when Jack finally starts pushing in.

“Shit, Holster, you feel.” Tight. Too tight. He stops to pour more lube between them and leans over Adam to hold him down as he works two fingers back into him to stretch him out some more, but Adam’s not having it. He pulls away from Jack’s hand.

“I’m _ready_ , dammit,” he snaps, and shoves back on Jack’s cock. “Come on, just do it already!”

So Jack does. He pushes past the rim and stays there for the entire five seconds Adam allows him to adjust, and then it’s instinct to thrust forward when Adam pushes back, his hips snapping against Adam’s ass.

“Harder,” Adam grits out, face mashed into a pillow. His back is slick with sweat already, neck flushed and muscles tense. It’s not—Jack wouldn’t want it this way very often, not when he prefers Adam boneless and blissed out before the orgasm even hits, melting into the sheets and drunk on pleasure, but. Sometimes. Maybe it’s okay sometimes.

“Fuck,” he mutters into the skin of Adam’s back, thighs burning from the relentless pace. He’s not going to last at this rate. For all that he’s not entirely satisfied he can feel his balls tightening from the friction, and he reaches around to find Adam’s cock because this is for Adam, and Jack wants him to come first.

Except Adam’s not even hard.

“What?” Jack says, confused, hips stuttering to a halt. “Adam?”

“I’m good, keep going,” Adam says, and his voice is _shaking_. Jack grips the bottom of the condom and pulls out, erection flagging like a punctured balloon because—

“Are you crying?” he asks, stunned. “Did I—are you hurt?”

Adam shakes his head, but he doesn’t _say_ anything, and Jack gets an arm under him and rolls him over and his face is wet, it’s wet and red and _how did Jack not realize this?_

“No,” he says, and hears his voice shake too. “ _No_ , I’m not going to keep—you’re _not_ good, you’re— _Adam_.”

Adam crosses his arms over his face like it can make Jack un-see the way his shoulders are trembling. “Sorry,” he says miserably. “I’m sorry.”

“Fuck,” Jack says. His hand finds the back of Adam’s knee; it feels like the safest place to touch. “Talk to me,” he pleads. “I don’t know what you need.”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Adam wails, and his voice breaks so hard Jack feels it in his bones. “I don’t fucking—I thought it would _help_.”

 _It didn’t_ , Jack thinks a little hysterically, like that isn’t obvious. He lays down beside Adam and pulls him close. “Come here,” he says, wedging one arm under Adam’s neck and wrapping the other over his waist. Adam goes willingly, letting himself be manhandled until they’re tucked chest to chest.

“You’re okay,” Jack tells him, because his mother told him that, and, “I’ve got you,” because he does. He’s here, he’s got Adam. That’s all he can do, and he hopes it’s enough.

Adam shakes harder in his arms. “Stay,” he manages through his tears. “Please, please, stay.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jack promises, and holds him tighter.

 

* * *

 

Adam cries himself to sleep. Jack waits until he’s sure he won’t notice to slip away. He pulls on his briefs and goes to brush his teeth and wash off his shoulders and chest. Then he finds the linen closet, grabs a fresh washcloth, dampens it with warm water, and brings it back. He wipes down Adam’s face first, waking him up enough to make him take out his contacts and blow into the tissue Jack holds under his nose.

“Shh, you’re fine,” he soothes when Adam blinks at him, confused, and nudges his thighs apart to clean up the lube. “Just making sure you don’t wake up sticky.” _And covered in snot_ , he doesn’t add.

“Kay,” Adam mumbles, still half-asleep. He’s likely blind with his contacts out and the lights off, but he doesn’t close his eyes until Jack slides back into bed.

“Here,” Jack pushes Mr. Koala into his hand. Adam curls his fingers around the stuffed toy and smiles at it blearily.

“Love you,” he says, to the koala or to Jack or both, maybe, and before Jack can think to ask he’s asleep again, snoring loudly into Jack’s ear.

Jack looks at him for a long moment, at his hair nearly white in the dim street light washing through the window and his hand curled against Jack’s chest, Mr. Koala secure in his fist. They’ll have to talk in the morning, but for now Jack strokes Adam’s cheek and listens to him sigh and stop snoring.

“Yeah,” he says quietly, because he knows this feeling. He’s felt it before, when he was seventeen and a fool who thought himself invincible.

 

* * *

 

**05/09/2013**

Lardo  
6:12 AM: _u guys good?_

Jack  
6:14 AM: _Not sure_

Lardo  
6:14 AM: _Is it fixable?_

Jack  
6:15 AM: _I think so_

Lardo  
6:15 AM: _then ur good_

 

* * *

 

**05/09/2013**

Shitty  
6:24 AM: _all nighters suck_

Shitty  
6:24 AM: _can’t focus on this idsc shit anymore how’s it going over there_

Shitty  
6:24 AM: _i have a bet with lards that you won’t sleep in even on the 1st day of your summer break don’t let me lose now_

Jack  
6:30 AM: _Went for a drive. Might have done something stupid._

Shitty  
6:30 AM: _stupid how_

Jack  
6:31 AM: _I bought flowers_

Shitty  
6:31 AM: _for who?_

Shitty  
6:31 AM: _whom?_ *

Jack  
6:32 AM: _His mom_

Shitty  
6:33 AM: _jack_

Shitty  
6:33 AM: _wtf_

Jack  
6:34 AM: _It’s our two month anniversary and I didn’t know if I should bring it up at a time like this!_

Jack  
6:34 AM: _His mom doesn’t know yet so I can’t even do anything special._

Jack  
6:35 AM: _I figured I could pass it off as a thank you to her for letting me stay with them if it turned out to be super inappropriate._

Shitty  
6:36 AM: _while i have to say it’s a pretty decent plan_

Shitty  
6:36 AM: _didn’t he ask you out by buying your mom flowers?_

Jack  
6:36 AM: _Don’t make the joke._

Shitty  
6:37 AM: _i’m just saying bro i think he’ll know_

Shitty  
6:37 AM: _also i’m wounded that you think i’d ever make a your mom joke_

Shitty  
6:38 AM: _i also gotta be the one to point out that this is a weird as fuck tradition you’re setting with buying each other’s moms flowers for your anniversaries_

Shitty  
6:39 AM: _like you wanna buy your boy flowers, buy HIM the fucking flowers_

Jack  
6:40 AM: _I don’t know if he even likes flowers._

Shitty  
6:40 AM: _bro_

Jack  
6:40 AM: _I know, I’m a disaster._

Shitty  
6:40 AM: _you’re a disaster but a romantic one. ilu_

 

* * *

 

There’s a bowl next to the door for keys, and Jack drops the set he dug out from Adam’s slacks into it. The flowers are bright and fresh from the nearest florist; he roots around in the kitchen cupboards for something resembling a vase.

Adam’s still asleep when Jack checks on him, so he showers quickly and hopes it won’t be too impolite to make breakfast in Rachel’s kitchen. Adam uses the same brand of protein powder Jack does, and there are enough ingredients in the pantry and fridge to make pancakes.

He’s waffling on putting blueberries in the batter when he hears the lock click open. Rachel blinks at him for a moment, dark shadows under her eyes and blue scrubs rumpled, but manages to dredge up a smile.

“Good morning, Jack,” she says. “Adam’s being lazy, is he?”

Jack muster a grin for her too, ignoring the way his stomach twists just thinking of last night. “It’s seven a.m. on the first day of summer vacation. I just have to maintain my schedule if I want to keep up with training. Would you like some breakfast? I thought I’d make pancakes.”

Maman would stop him then and there and bustle him out of her kitchen, but Rachel’s whole face lights up with such obvious pleasure it makes Jack duck his head, because it’s just _breakfast_.

“Oh, we have blueberries,” she says, bouncing on her toes like a child. “You should make blueberry pancakes.”

“Okay,” Jack replies, pulling the box of blueberries out of the fridge. “I can put on coffee for you if you want.”

Rachel toes off her comfortable crocs and gestures behind him. “If you could just put the kettle on, that would be great. I’m going to crash soon. Just decaf tea for me. I’m going to go take a quick shower.”

“Sure,” Jack says, locating the electric kettle, and the frying pans chilling in the oven. He gets the feeling Rachel doesn’t cook a whole lot. “I’ll have food ready by the time you’re out.”

“You’re my new favorite,” Rachel tells him sincerely, and walks into the living room. Tired as she is, Jack fully expects her to bypass the flowers and head for the shower, but the footsteps stop suddenly and he knows she saw the tall stalks of dahlias, carefully arranged in a clear vase on the table in front of the couch.

“Jack.” He turns away from the sink because it would be rude not to, half-filled kettle in his hand. Rachel is in the kitchen doorway, in her socks with the vase braced on one hip. “Let me guess, another thank you?”

Jack bites his lip. “I’m imposing at an inconvenient time,” he says, but it sounds feeble to his own ears.

Rachel stares him down, unimpressed. “I should be buying you flowers, then,” she says. “You drove Adam all the way down here at a moment’s notice.”

“I,” Jack stops. “Please don’t buy me flowers. It was no trouble.”

“This is no trouble for me,” Rachel says, putting a hand on her free hip. “You have to know that. We both like having you here. You’re like family by now; you shouldn’t feel like you’re imposing, and you don’t have to give me flowers to earn your place.”

“Adam said you liked them last time,” Jack says, and it comes out more defensive than he intended. They’re just flowers. “He likes seeing you happy.”

Rachel looks at him for a long moment, eyes very soft. “And you like making him happy,” she says.

She knows, Jack thinks numbly.

“Yes,” he says.

Rachel nods, and the smile she gives him makes her look decades younger. “I love them,” she says. “Feel free to give me flowers as often as you like.”

“Thank you,” Jack tells her. This isn’t exactly how he expected this conversation to go, but. “I will.”

She gives him another nod and takes the vase back to the living room, and a few minutes later Jack hears the shower turn on. He plugs in the kettle and turns back to the pancakes. The first one burns and the second turns into a messy ball of dough because he’s forgotten how to flip, but the remaining twelve turn out okay, if a little disfigured. He fries up a few eggs too, because pancakes alone aren’t going to get either him or Adam through till lunch.

Actually, he realizes, putting sriracha in the eggs because he’s picked up the awful habit from Adam and hasn’t figure out how to quit yet, he’s not sure he’ll be sticking around for lunch. He didn’t have much of a plan when he agreed to drive six hours to Buffalo.

The eggs are just about done when Rachel comes back out to make herself a mug of green tea with honey, and she pulls the other frying pans out of the oven so Jack can put Adam’s plate in there to keep warm. They carry their food out to the couch, and this time Jack folds up his legs without a second thought.

Rachel sits next to him, but she doesn’t turn on the TV. She spreads honey over her pancakes. Jack shakes his head when she offers him the bottle.

“I’m okay, thank you,” he says. Rachel frowns thoughtfully.

“We have some Canadian maple syrup too,” she says. “Ransom brought some the last time he visited. I don’t eat at home much when Adam’s not around; it’s all hospital cafeteria food. I think the bottle’s still unopened.”

“Unopened!” Jack squawks before he can catch himself, and blushes when Rachel laughs at him. She’s very good at putting him at ease. “I—no, I actually like my pancakes plain. Sometimes I put maple syrup in my tea though. Holster thinks it’s gross.”

“It sounds a little gross,” Rachel says serenely, using her fork to cut her pancakes into bite-sized pieces. It’s the same thing Adam does, cutting up all his food before taking a bite. “Were you dating Adam when I met you last winter?”

Jack barely avoids choking, and scoops his over-medium egg yolk into his mouth whole to buy himself some time, because while he remembers a truckload of _feelings_ over four months ago, the answer is actually—he shakes his head.

Rachel hums thoughtfully. It doesn’t feel like she totally believes him, but Jack is pretty sure it’s not a good idea to confirm or deny anything at all when Adam hasn’t managed to come out to her yet. So he swallows with some difficulty and says, “You should probably ask Adam these things.”

Rachel pauses, looking him over with something very much like approval. “Of course,” she says briskly, and pretends Jack isn’t fidgeting uncomfortably only half a foot away. “So what are your plans for the summer?”

By the time Adam stumbles out of his room in sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt, glasses lopsided and hair sticking out all over the place, Rachel has managed to prod Jack into a conversation about hockey that she keeps up with almost as well as his mother. She’s telling him all about how much she hates the New York Rangers when Adam falls half on the arm of the couch and half on Jack. For all that he fell asleep crying, he doesn’t look it this morning. His eyes aren’t as puffy and his yawn is mostly for show, and the simmering anxiety in Jack’s belly calms down, knowing he at least slept well.

“You’re up early,” Rachel teases him, stacking her and Jack’s empty plates on top of each other. Jack relaxes into the cushions at his back and takes some more of Adam’s weight, ducking his head to hide a smile. It’s barely past eight. Adam is a morning person, but the only times he wakes up this early when they don’t have practice or class is when he’s sleeping over with Jack and Jack leaves him in bed alone.

“Uh, yeah,” Adam says. He’s still bleary from sleep, but he looks between Jack and his mom warily, sensing the way they’re easier around each other. “You guys had breakfast without me?”

“There’s a plate for you in the oven,” Jack tells him, and Rachel adds, “Brush your teeth first, and don’t forget to floss,” like Adam is all of five years old.

“ _Mom_ ,” Adam whines, cheeks flushing, but he pushes himself to his feet. Jack doesn’t expect him to lean over for a kiss, but that’s exactly what Adam does, pressing their lips together, quick and chaste and close-mouthed because his mom mentioned brushing. He straightens with a hand at the back of Jack’s neck and flashes him a grin, then turns and flees to the bathroom.

Jack stares after him, a little flummoxed and a little outraged. “You’re going to just leave me here?” he calls, and Adam yells, “Sorry! I’ll be back!” like he didn’t just abandon Jack to his mom immediately after coming out to her.

“He’s kind of awful, isn’t he?” Rachel asks when Jack turns back to her, sounding like she means exactly the opposite.

Jack sighs fondly. “Yeah,” he says, because he really is.

 

* * *

 

Adam does eventually slink out of the bathroom, stomach growling loud enough that Rachel takes pity on him and makes Jack stop holding his food hostage. She sits across from him in the armchair and waits for him to finish eating, so Jack gives them some space and retreats to Adam’s room.

There are four texts on his phone, three from Shitty letting him know he’s going to bed, and one from his dad, asking about his flight back to Montreal. Jack doesn’t reply to that, and calls his mother instead.

“Jack!” his mother answers, sounding breathless.

“Hi, Maman,” Jack says. “Did I interrupt your workout?”

“Gardening, actually,” she laughs brightly, and he hears her shuffling around. She’s probably putting her work gloves away to give him her full attention. He feels vaguely guilty about taking up her time like he always does, even though he knows she loves it when he calls.

“When are you coming home, chéri?” she asks after a minute. The background noise drops off like she’s gone inside and closed a door. “I haven’t seen your face in _forever_.”

Jack smiles despite himself; being around Rachel made him miss her more than usual. “We Skyped last week, Maman.”

“It was _forever_ ago,” his mother says, resolute. “Your papa tells me you haven’t bought your ticket yet.”

“I’m actually closer than you think,” Jack tells her, flopping down on the unmade bed. He plucks Mr. Koala from between the pillows and puts him on the nightstand. “Holster had a family emergency, so I drove him home yesterday.”

“Home?” Maman asks; Jack can hear the frown in his voice. “Buffalo, right? Is everything alright?”

“I—not really,” Jack says. “His godfather passed away.”

“Oh, that’s,” she stops. “How are they holding up?”

Jack hasn’t been paying a whole lot of attention to how Rachel’s doing, to be honest, but Adam seems better now than he did yesterday. He says, “As well as can be expected, I guess,” and hopes it’s good enough.

Maman is quiet for a long moment. “Are you okay, sweetheart?” she finally asks, tentative, and Jack has to push down the resentment swelling up from deep inside him, the stupid things he can’t make go away no matter how many times he tells himself, _it’s not that she doesn’t trust you, she just worries_.

“I’m fine,” he replies, and winces at how terse he sounds. He tries to cover it up by being extra polite when he adds, “I only wanted to let you know that I will probably be flying back this Sunday.”

“Okay, Jack,” she agrees so quickly Jack knows she heard the annoyance in his voice, and feels worse about it. He’s suddenly jealous of how easily Rachel and Adam talk to each other; they don’t have to choose their words so carefully or refrain from saying the first thing that comes into their minds. Their conversations aren’t like navigating emotional minefields.

Fuck, he misses being able to talk to his parents.

“Uh, so,” he starts, and clears his throat. “Papa texted about my flight. I was hoping you could let him know.”

“Of course,” Maman replies, a note of sadness in her voice. “You could give him a call too. He’ll love to hear from you.”

Jack hasn’t really talked to his dad for more than five minutes at a time since the Yale game in February. “You should tell him,” he says.

“But—alright, I will,” she says heavily. Jack hates disappointing her, but he’s not ready to have a long conversation with his dad without his mother there to mediate. “Will you fly in from Buffalo, then?”

“What?” Jack says. “Oh, no, I’m leaving this evening, probably. I’ll fly in from Boston as usual. I’ll text you and Papa my itinerary when I have it.”

“Alright,” Maman says. Jack hears her draw another breath, but she’s hesitating, thinking over what she wants to say to make sure it won’t—upset him, or something. He wants to snap at her to just say it, but he’s learned to control that impulse by now.

“Jack, baby,” she finally starts. “Is that the only reason you called?”

“Yes,” Jack says reflexively, then thinks about it. “Actually. It’s just. The only thing I remember about Paw Paw dying is how sad Papa was.”

“He was very sad, for a very long time,” Maman agrees.

“I don’t know how to help,” Jack blurts, and this is really why he called her, no matter how much he wants to think it’s for no big reason. He hasn’t asked his mother for advice in _years_ , not since Before, but he feels like he needs it now. “I want to be here for him, Holster says he wants me here, but everything I do seems _wrong_.”

Maman breathes over the line, thinking. It’s probably not what she expected Jack to say, but she’s good at rolling with the punches.

“You’re not going to like this,” she says after a while. “But there really isn’t much that you _can_ do. This isn’t the kind of thing you can help with, Jack; grief is something you need to work through on your own. All you can really do is listen if he wants to talk, let him vent if he needs to be angry, offer a shoulder if he needs to cry. Being there for him doesn’t mean physically being there, it just means making sure he knows he has friends and family who love him and who he can talk to. Sometimes you will probably do the wrong thing; it happens, it’s no one’s fault and you can sort it out if it does.”

Jack rolls onto his stomach and muffles a groan into a pillow. “I feel useless,” he says.

“I know,” Maman replies. “I did too.”

Jack chews on his lip and digests that. It’s not really anything he didn’t already know, but it sounds a lot more profound somehow, coming from his mother.

“Merci, Maman,” he says eventually, and she makes a small noise in her throat in acknowledgment.

“It’ll be alright, Jack,” she says. “It might get frustrating, and it might not make sense, but what you’re doing, it’s a good thing. Grief fades with time. Remember that, okay?”

Jack half-wonders if her grief faded with time. It’s been nearly four years. He doesn’t ask.

“I’ll be home soon,” he says instead. “I’ll text you when I get back to Samwell.”

She accepts that he’s done talking about it without any fuss; it’s slowly becoming his new favorite thing about her. “We’re hosting the Stanley Cup meetup this year, remember. Your friends are welcome if any of them want to join us.”

Jack is startled into a laugh. “I’ll ask, but I don’t want to be responsible if Uncle Wayne and Uncle Steve give someone a heart attack. I think Shitty’s getting high blood pressure already. And Holster might actually be more starstruck by your friends than Papa’s.”

Maman snickers audibly. “As long as they don’t try to sue us we’ll be fine. Really, it’ll be nice having your friends around if they can make it. Mario’s been looking forward to meeting them in person.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” Jack says, with feeling. “I’ll let them know. Talk to you later.”

“Okay, okay,” Maman laughs. “Love you, baby.”

“Love you too,” Jack replies, because he never hangs up without saying that anymore. He’s only just tossed the phone onto the pillow and sat up to scrub his hands through his hair when Adam walks in, raising an eyebrow at Jack’s bedhead.

“Talked to my mom,” Jack says by way of explanation. It’s enough; Adam doesn’t know all the details but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how strained Jack’s relationship is with his parents.

Adam closes the door behind him and climbs into bed next to Jack. “So,” he says.

Jack eyes him warily, because there are a lot of so’s he could be talking about right now, starting with accidentally outing him to his mom and ending with last night.

“The flowers?” Adam says, exasperated like Jack was supposed to figure that out on his own somehow. “How are you _still_ better at flirting with my mom than with anyone else?”

“Oh,” Jack says. “They’re like a thank you note.”

Adam looks at him patiently. “It’s the ninth of the month, and you bought my mom her favorite flowers. Again. I’m not that bad at taking a hint.”

“The first time had nothing to do with you,” Jack protests. “And I didn’t know if you wanted—I don’t know. It’s not like we celebrated our first month; I just didn’t want you to think I forgot.”

“I forgot,” Adam says, glancing away guiltily. “Sorry.”

“You had other things on your mind,” Jack touches his knee. “Adam. What happened last night. I need you to talk to me.”

Adam blows out a breath, still avoiding Jack’s eyes. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m sorry? I didn’t. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

It’s easier for Adam to talk about these things if he doesn’t have to look at the person he’s talking to, Jack knows this, but he sits up anyway and turns to face him. Adam ducks his head and directs his sightline somewhere near Jack’s stomach, but at least Jack can see his face.

“You wanted to, right?” Jack asks a little desperately, because he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he misread the whole thing. “At the beginning?”

That startles Adam into looking up at him, and whatever he sees on Jack’s face makes him reach for his hand. “Yes,” he says firmly, twining their fingers together. “ _Yes_ , Jack, I asked you, remember? I _wanted_ to have sex, and I wanted you to be rough. That was all me, okay? I fucked up.”

“You didn’t,” Jack squeezes his hand. “You asked me for something and I said yes. I don’t—I won’t mind doing it like that, sometimes, if that’s what you want. But not unless we’re both into it. Why didn’t. Why didn’t you tell me, when you stopped wanting it?”

Adam’s chin lowers to his chest again. Jack watches him chew the inside of his cheek and waits as patiently as he can, even though his free hand is twisting anxiously into the sheets.

“I don’t know,” Adam finally says, rueful. “That’s pretty useless, huh? I guess I just felt like shit and I _wanted_ to feel like shit and that—it just added to that. Fuck. It probably sounds like I used you to feel shitty about myself on purpose, but I swear I didn’t mean to. I don’t know what happened; I really thought you could make me feel _better_. At first, at least.”

If anyone knows how difficult it is turning the shit in your head into actual words, it’s Jack. Sometimes there’s really just no way to make it make _sense_ to other people, but he thinks he gets what Adam’s talking about. God (and Shitty) knows Jack still doesn’t always know to say no, even if he managed to say it to Adam.

“I don’t think there is a better for this,” he tells Adam what his mother told him, and feels like a heel doing it. “You can’t just make it go away like that.”

“I had to try,” Adam says, quiet. “It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. You were there.”

Oh. Jack has to kiss him, for that. It’s slower this time, and something in Jack’s chest settles as Adam opens to him as sweetly as he always does. They’re fully clothed and have no intention of having sex with Adam’s mom in the house, but it feels. Intimate.

Adam sighs into Jack’s mouth and pulls away; Jack chases his lips for half a second before he catches himself.

“I’m only going to be a text away, you know,” he says, watching Adam’s tongue dart out to lick his lips. “I can buy a ticket and be here within a few hours if you need me, and you can always, always call. Ransom, too. We’re here for you, okay?”

Adam blinks at him, eyes too bright. “Yeah, I know,” he says thickly, and Jack kisses him again.

“You’re important to us,” he says. Adam laughs wetly into his mouth.

“You too,” he says simply, and it’s enough.

 

* * *

 

It’s been four years, but sometimes Jack still wakes up and can’t believe he’s alive. Four years later he still misses Parse like a phantom limb that was once there and now just—isn’t. Four years later his mother’s smile still falters when hospitals come up in conversation and his dad goes deathly still.

Nearly seventeen years later, Papa still can’t talk about Paw Paw without his voice getting thick.

Grief doesn’t ever really go away, Jack thinks. You just cover it up with other things and keep going.

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you sure you can’t stay?” Rachel sounds terribly disappointed, tucked firmly against Jack’s chest, arms around his waist because it’s easier than reaching his shoulders. “I can bribe you with more Chinese.”

Jack laughs and pulls away; she lets him go reluctantly. “I’ll come back. It’s a long vacation; I’ll visit for a whole week sometime.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” she smiles at him ruefully, standing on her toes to pat his cheek. “Adam’s been making noises about going to the Niagara Falls with Ransom; we can send them on their way and relax here.”

“Hey,” Adam protests from where he’s been watching the farewell with a fond smile. “You can’t just replace me with him; that’s not how this works.”

“Says you,” Rachel shoots back at the same time Jack says, “Your mom has better taste than you anyway, _Rangers_ fan.”

Rachel laughs long and loud as Adam grumbles, and gives Jack’s arm a squeeze before stepping away. “Drive safe, okay? Text me when you get back to Samwell. _Me_ , not just Adam.”

“I will,” Jack promises.

“Well? Go on,” she tells Adam, making a shooing motion in Jack’s direction, then turns and disappears into the apartment like she’s expecting them to start playing tonsil hockey right in the doorway. It’s evening now, and Jack and Adam may or may not have spent most of the day alternating between talking and making out on the bed like sixteen year-olds. Rachel may or may not have walked in on them during one of the times they were definitely _not_ talking. Jack feels his ears heat up, but Adam just rolls his eyes and steps right into his space.

“Just a text away,” he mimics, and Jack punches him in the arm.

“So listen,” he says, blushing down to his cheeks. “My family’s a bit weird. We don’t do Canada Day or Thanksgiving or Christmas, but we do the Stanley Cup finals. Maman wants you guys to come.”

“At what point does it get weird for us to keep using our moms as proxies for everything important?” Adam asks dubiously, and Jack laughs again.

“We’re probably past that point, let’s be honest,” he says, and leans in for a kiss that presses Adam’s glasses into his cheeks. When they break apart Jack curls his fingers into Adam’s shirt and clings, just a little.

“I’ll get you all tickets anyway,” he says, forehead pressed to the warm ridge of Adam’s collarbone. “But you. I’d really like it if you could come. I want you to meet my family. They’re not as cool as your mom but they’re still pretty great.”

Adam curls his fingers into the hair at the back of Jack’s neck and pulls him close. “I’d like that,” he says, soft and shy.

“Okay,” Jack agrees, and takes a deep breath, and steps away. He hoists the duffel onto his shoulder, and Adam follows him down to his car. He leans against the hood as Jack tosses his bag into the backseat and climbs into the driver’s seat.

“I’ll call,” he says, before Jack can get to it. “I promise.”

“And you’ll talk to Ransom?” Jack presses. Adam rolls his eyes, but he looks amused.

“I’ll call him before you’re on the highway,” he agrees.

Jack starts up the car, and Adam pushes back to let him start backing out of the parking space. It doesn’t feel like Jack won’t see him again for over a month, not when he’s smiling like that, so Jack gives him a short wave and. Goes.

He doesn’t actually make it onto the I-190 before his phone starts ringing. Jack mutes his GPS and switches to call.

“I lied,” Adam’s voice booms through his speakers. “I’ll call Ransom tonight.”

“Oh?” Jack hedges, smiling helplessly at the road. “What’re you gonna do until then?”

“Well,” Adam says thoughtfully. “Mom already got her eight hours, and I already miss you, and I realize that it’s our two month anniversary and you got my mom flowers and I didn’t get you _or_ your mom anything.”

“Holtzy, you don’t have to—” Jack starts, but Adam cuts him off.

“Did I ask for your opinion?” he demands. “I’m being romantic here, Zimmermann. It has been brought to my attention that your most recent music knowledge is stuck in the 80s, and I am honor-bound to fix that.”

“Are you going to serenade me?” Jack asks, secretly thrilled. Ransom warned him this would happen.

“Ruin the surprise, why don’t you,” Adam says, not at all dispirited. “We’re starting all the way back with Backstreet Boys.”

“Start with Inconsolable; I hear that one’s your favorite,” Jack says, and turns up the volume on his speakers.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love, and you can also [reblog on tumblr](http://foxfireflamequeen.tumblr.com/post/152886014813/staying-in-the-trenches-cause-youre-worth)!
> 
> Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. I know it's been a long time, and I'm sorry for making you wait. There is an interlude fully written waiting for the go-ahead from my fucked up brain; I intend to share that with you as soon as I'm a little better, mental health-wise. Other than that, there is at least one more long-ish fic in the works (Holster has to visit Jack's family now, doesn't he?), and at least one more interlude.
> 
> If you're at all interested in a JackHoltz actor/fan AU, there's a lot on it already [here on my tumblr](http://foxfireflamequeen.tumblr.com/post/152185481998/did-someone-say-actorfan-au-d-pls-share)! I don't intend to write a full-fledged fic on this AU, because it would likely be beyond my capabilities as a writer, but I have planned it out completely.
> 
> That said, I will very, very happily write snippets for it on tumblr [if anyone asks](http://foxfireflamequeen.tumblr.com/ask), and answer any and all questions about it, and also take prompts for this AU, because I do want to write about it, just maybe not put pressure on myself to write a full fic that I'll post to AO3. My [askbox](http://foxfireflamequeen.tumblr.com/ask) is always open if you're at all interested in this AU, and everything I write on it will go into the 'JackHoltz' tag on tumblr, if you want to track it.


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